The denial of Serbian crimes in Kosovo poses a direct threat to the future, it was said on the 27th anniversary of the Reçak massacre, during a scholarly roundtable organized by the Shtime Intellectuals Forum on the topic “Serbian Denial of Crimes and Genocide, Destabilization for the Balkans.”
The Mayor of Shtime, Qemajl Aliu, stated that the Reçak massacre marked a major turning point in the history of Kosovo. Among the 400 massacres committed by Serbia, he said, the Reçak massacre was internationally denounced, reports KosovaPress.
He also mentioned the indictment filed at the end of last year by the Special Prosecution, which charges 21 Serbian criminals.
The Chairman of the Shtime Intellectuals Forum, Banush Imeri, said that Reçak remains one of the heaviest wounds in Kosovo’s history.
The denial of this massacre by senior Serbian officials, according to Albania’s ambassador to Kosovo, Petrit Malaj, constitutes a direct threat to the future.
On January 15, 1999, Serbian forces brutally killed 45 Albanian civilians in the village of Reçak, Shtime municipality. The first person to tell the world that a crime against humanity had occurred there was the head of the OSCE Verification Mission in Kosovo at the time, William Walker. This tragic event in Reçak prompted an international response, leading NATO to target Serbian military and police sites.
